1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a thermal module, and more particularly, to a thermal module for use with an electronic apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
With rapid advance of computer technology in recent years, computers are being made to operate at higher frequency, and the heat generation of electronic components in computer host are becoming greater and greater. To avoid temporary or permanent failure of the electronic components in the computer host due to overheat thereof, the heat generated by the electronic components must be sufficiently dissipated. Therefore, thermal modules are necessarily attached to those electronic components having high heat generation such as CPUs, Graphics Chips, Northbridge Chips, Southbridge Chips, and random-access memory modules, or the like, for cooling these electronic components.
Taking a notebook computer as an example, due to the limitation to the size of the notebook computer, the notebook computer has a small interior space within a base unit. As a result, the provision of a thermal module is very important. Besides, to improve the heat dissipating efficiency while keeping the noise of the fan in an acceptable level, the computer base unit has widely adopted the heat pipe technology to dissipate heat.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a conventional thermal module employed in an electronic apparatus. Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional thermal module 100 includes a fan 110, a heat sink 120, and a heat pipe 130. The thermal module 100 is mounted within the electronic apparatus. The electronic apparatus includes a heat generating element 10, a circuit board 20 and a casing 30. The heat generating element 10 is disposed within the casing 30 and mounted on the circuit board 20. The fan 110 is mounted in the casing 30. The fan 110 has an air outlet 112 oriented toward an opening 32 of the casing 30, for discharging airflow generated by the fan 110 to an exterior of the casing 30 via the opening 32. The heat sink 120 is mounted within the casing 30 between the outlet 112 of the fan 110 and the opening 32 of the casing 30, such that the airflow generated by the fan 110 passes through the heat sink 120 and exits the casing 30 via the opening 32. The heat pipe 130 contacts the heat generating element 10 and extends to the heat sink 120.
As the electronic apparatus operates, the heat generating element 10 generates a large amount of heat. In this case, the heat generated by the heat generating element 10 is first transferred to the heat pipe 130 and then to the end of the heat pipe 130 that extends to the heat sink 120. Next, the heat sink 120 absorbs the heat on the heat pipe 130, and the airflow passing through the heat sink 120 takes the heat out of the casing 30.
For convenience of carriage, the electronic apparatus, especially the notebook computers, are trending toward light-weight and low-profile design. To achieve lower-profile of the casing 30, thickness of components within the casing 30 must be reduced as much as possible. However, to keep sufficient heat dissipating performance, the thickness of the heat pipe 130 of the thermal module 100 cannot be reduced as desired, which has become a hindrance to the low-profile design.